Thermal Infrared Detection of Aerosolized Bacterial Spores

Protection of fixed sites from biological or chemical (CB) aerosol plume attacks depends on early warning and confirmatory evidence to provide time and information to take the appropriate mitigating actions. An effective sensing system requires continuous, autonomous, and rapid coverage of large surrounding areas. Most qualitative CB sensors used for identification purposes are too expensive or too slow to deploy in the quantities needed for continuous coverage of an area large enough to provide sufficient monitoring. Thermal infrared cameras are currently used for physical security purposes to provide detection of people and vehicles. This research effort is aimed at leveraging these thermal infrared cameras to provide an added biological and chemical aerosol plume detection capability. This is possible due to the Mie scattering effect resultant from the interaction of thermal radiation and the aerosol particle. This research effort will focus on enhancing existing MESH developed detection algorithms.